After spending some time in Phuket, I made my way up to Chiang Mai for the holiday. As with anything else, I came with the intention of making photographs out of the experience. Not necessarily photographs of the events, but rather pictures that are possible as a result of the activity that occurs.

I did make a couple of photos that are good, but definitely photos of Songkran; which is OK. After shooting for a day or so, I found that I wasn't enjoying myself. I foolishly assumed that I would be able to keep my Nikon DF reasonably dry. The DF is sealed pretty well, but the lens, 40mm voigtlander ultron, is not. When I took the lens off, water had begun seeping onto the mount, made it as far as the CPU contacts, and was causing erratic aperture changes. Also the aperture ring froze up. So after a day of direct hits to the lens I was getting pretty frustrated at people in general who would deliberately throw buckets of water at my camera. I understand I'm gonna get wet, but that's a little unkind really. The lens was OK after it dried off BTW.

So I realized I was thinking too much about my gear and decided to leave my DSLR in my room as I didn't want to put it at risk again for what looked like pretty standard pictures. I put my GoPro on and joined the water fight. It felt good to relax and not think about pictures so much. Sometimes, photographing gets me into experiences I would have never had, but sometimes I'm too busy photographing to participate and enjoy myself.